The Sun and Other Stars

by Brigid Pasulka

  The rest of the morning is busy, and all the conversations blend together.

  “Take off the skin.”

  “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  “Slice it thin, please.”

  “He always was a cheapskate, though.”

  “Three . . . no, four.”

  “She’ll never get married.”

  “They haven’t talked to each other since the fifties.”

  “Well, you know, she wasn’t at Mass this morning.”

  The bachelors are always the last to come in, just before the afternoon break. Nicola Nicolini orders two fillets and has me trim some of the meat off to make them into perfect circles.

  “New girlfriend, eh, Nicola?”

  He turns red and pretends to be searching inside his purse, man bag, whatever, mumbling that they are both for him, and something about being an eternal bachelor, blah, blah, blah, and we should come next door for dinner sometime. One of these days, I’m going to put him out of his misery and tell him that everyone knows he’s gay. That doesn’t he realize he lives on the other side of our fottuto wall, and besides, we have the ever-vigilant nonne to alert us and everyone else in San Benedetto whenever he brings a man home?

  “Have you heard about the Genoa-Venezia scandal?” he asks, as if talking about calcio is going to camouflage the flames.

  “Let me guess . . . steroids?”

  “Match fixing.”

  “What’s new?”

  There’s been a scandal every couple of years now for as long as I can remember—match fixing, steroids, horse tranquilizers, cocaine smuggling, fake passports to dodge the foreign-player quotas, Rolexes magically appearing on every referee’s wrist. It’s the same old story every time. It’ll be analyzed and overanalyzed for a couple of weeks in the media—especially if it’s not Berlusconi’s team—until finally the players involved will appear, heads hanging, making the obligatory and televised act of contrition and asking for absolution from the fans. When they’re ready to move on, the media will cauterize the whole thing by giving it a nickname, and then everyone will forget about it until the next scandal breaks, when they’ll get excited by the gushing blood all over again.

  “I don’t know, Etto,” Nicola Nicolini continues. “It looks pretty bad this time. They’ve been at it all morning over at Martina’s.”

  “Let me guess. My papà’s leading the charge.”

  “He looked like he was about to lose his straps.”

  Figures. I’m sure he’ll use it as an excuse not to come into the shop at all today. In the past two years, we’ve created an entire branch of science out of living together but not living together, like if we circulate in some provisional reality, the permanent one doesn’t have a chance to harden into place. Like if we aren’t in the same room together, we can still pretend nothing is missing, and we don’t see the gaps we’ve been cursed to illuminate for each other.

  He finally appears ten minutes before close, out of breath, clutching his precious Gazzetta dello Sport.

  “Have you heard the news?” he pants.

  “Ciao, Papà.”

  “Yes, yes. Ciao, ciao. Have you heard?”

  Papà looks almost the same as he did twenty-five years ago. Still the same sturdy torso, the same heavy hands and thick crew cut he had in his photos from military service and our team pictures when he coached us in chickadees. Only in the past two years has it been shot through with gray—small, silver wounds at his temples and in the back of his head.

  “The scandal?”

  “The mistaken scandal. The only real scandal is that they are tarnishing the image of Yuri Fil. Can you believe they are trying to blame him for match fixing and conspiracy now? Because he left the field with a bum ankle! Incredible!”

  “Well, how do you know he wasn’t in on it?”

  My father gasps. “How do I know he wasn’t in on it? Maradona!” This is the strongest word Papà ever uses, both a blessing and a curse, same as the man himself was. “No, he did not do it! Yuri Fil is an innocent man! I would bet my life on it! They are only using him as a scapegoat or for some other scheme!”

  He throws up his hands in exasperation, and the Gazzetta dello Sport falls to the floor, a pink spot on the clean, white linoleum. He bends over to pick it up, and when he comes up, his face is red, like someone has turned off a spigot in his neck. He tucks the paper under his arm and stares at me with his bulging eyes, shaking his head, as if he can’t believe we’re related.

  “How do I know?” he says again. “Really, Etto . . .”

  Luca would never have blasphemed Yuri Fil. If Luca was here—not that Papà would’ve ever allowed him to waste a minute behind the banco—but if Luca was still alive, they would’ve stood around for hours, dissecting the entire affair, taking turns at proving Yuri Fil’s innocence in a hundred different ways.

  Papà squints at the glass and pokes a finger at the plastic sack keeping cold in the back of the case. “Who’s that for?”

  “Pia.”

  “Make sure she pays cash.”

  “She always does.”

  “Good. I’m not subsidizing that stronzo of a husband of hers. And what’s this?” Papà stabs another finger at the glass.

  “Those are shish kebabs.”

  “Not those. This.”

  “It’s a tribute to the new pope. I thought the Germans and the nonne would like it.”

  “Take it out.”

  “But, Papà . . .”

  “It’s disrespectful. Take it out. Your bisnonno and your nonno and I did not build a dignified business in order for you to turn it into a joke.” He gestures to the portraits on the wall behind him, as if that gives him a majority. “And while you’re at it, take those shish kebabs out of there and redo them. It looks like they were made by the home for the blind. Honestly!”

  “But I was just about to close up.”

  “Redo them. And how many times do I have to tell you to put on a hairnet?”

  Let me be clear. I am never putting on a fottuto hairnet, and Papà knows that I am never putting on a fottuto hairnet. He’s just using it as leverage so I will fix the shish kebabs and let him run his mouth. He’s shouting from the back now, launching into his speech about the nobility of the profession, the butcher as the guardian of morals in the community, and the fact that an entire line of French kings descended from a butcher. Pretty soon he will be on to how my bisnonno arrived in this town eighty years ago with only his leather roll of knives.

  “Are you listening to me, Etto?”

  “Yes, Papà. I’m listening.”

  I clip the paper hat and cape off the chicken pope and slip the skewer out of its wing, but just to show him that he is not the master of me, I leave the chicken suspended, upright and naked in the case. Papà reappears in the front with the crate of dirty laundry, the newspaper balanced on top.

  “I mean it, Etto. Either a hairnet or a haircut. I tell you this every week. And you need to get that field mowed. This weekend. Gubbio says it looks as if it’s been completely abandoned.”

  “Gubbio’s exaggerating.”

  “Would you just do it without complaining for once, Etto? Maradona, you’re twenty-two! I shouldn’t have to tell you everything. Your brother was living away from home at fifteen.”

  Papà rarely invokes my brother, and once it slips out of his mouth, he disappears as quickly as he can.

  “Right, and look how that turned out,” I say, once the door is safely closed behind him.

  Nonno and my bisnonno both scowl at me from their portraits on the wall.

  “I know, I know. I’m a bad son. What’s new?”

  I used to think about leaving all this, maybe living on my own or even moving to the city. When Mamma’s sister was here to visit that one time, before she got bogged down with her six kids, she and Mamma talked about me and Luca maybe spending a year in America once we graduated from liceo. There were even a few years when Casella and I talked about enrolling in the animation
institute in Milan. But if you live here your whole life, you grow up hearing a steady chatter of people who talk about leaving, who sketch out their big dreams with too many words and sculpt their plans out of the air with grand, sweeping gestures. A few even manage to pack a suitcase and shake the sand of San Benedetto off their feet for a few years. But one way or the other, they always come back, and over the years, I guess that’s inoculated me from becoming another big talker in a long line.

  I lock up and cross the passeggiata to Bagni Liguria, shielding my eyes from the sun. Mimmo is manning the entrance hut. It’s not July yet, so there are still a few tags left on the board behind him, a few empty chaises and umbrellas in the grid.

  He looks up from his book. “Delivery?”

  “Ciacco called it in.”

  Mimmo takes the bag from me and trots off to find Ciacco while I stay on the boardwalk and survey the beach. The sun is out in full force, the white sails of the boats poking up out of the waves like shark teeth. There are a few people treading water, their heads floating in the sea. The rest are lying facedown on their chaises, backs burned, arms and feet dangling off the edge in some sort of medieval torture. I hate the bagni. I never go.

  Mimmo hovers over one of the chaises in the front row, and Ciacco squirms until he finally raises himself to a sitting position, the rolls of fat rearranging themselves as he digs into the purse hanging around his neck.

  “Ehi. Ciao, Etto.” Franco appears in front of the showers with a bucket of crabs and a gaggle of little kids following him around like he’s the magic piper. We used to collect crabs when we were little, too. We’d leave those poor little suckers sloshing around in a thin soup of sand and water until Franco made us dump them back into the sea so they wouldn’t die.

  “Ciao, Franco.”

  “What brings you here? Delivery?”

  “For Ciacco.”

  “You should put on your suit. Go for a little swim.”

  “Thanks, but I have a delivery up in the hills.”

  “Who?”

  “Pia.”

  He shakes his head the way everyone does when Pia’s name is mentioned. “Ah . . . sì, sì,” he says, by which he means, what a shame, what a shame. “You want me to let Fede know you’re here?”

  “That’s okay, he looks busy.”

  Franco laughs. “As usual.”

  Fede’s on the shore, his tanned back shaped like an arrow pointing to his culo, just in case you missed it in those tight trunks. He’s ankle deep in the surf, flirting with three blond girls, as Bocca leans down from the lifeguard chair, poised to catch the crumbs if they happen to fall from Fede’s table. I hold up two fingers and squish Bocca between them. Poser . . . squish. Fede . . . squish. Blond girls . . . squish, squish, squish. When Luca was around on breaks from the academy, Fede at least had some competition, but now he’s out there completely unchecked, roaming the savannah like on Animal Planet, and all you can do is turn your head at the last second.

  “Hey, thanks, Etto!” Ciacco is holding up one of the sandwiches and waving at me from his chaise, his stomach doubled up. “Extra meat. Just the way I like them!”

  Ciacco’s voice is faint against the waves, but it’s loud enough to get Fede’s attention, and Fede spins around and starts waving at me, his whole arm sweeping into an arc as if he’s stranded on some fottuto island.

  “Ehi! Etto!” he calls. “Come here!”

  I shake my head. “I’m not translating for you, deficiente,” I say quietly. “You should’ve learned English in school when you had the chance.”

  “Ehi! Etto!” he calls again, still sweeping his arm back and forth.

  The blond girls are staring at me now, too, and Bocca twists around in the chair to have a look. Mimmo is taking his time chatting with sunbathers and children as he makes his way back to me with the money. I shake my head with more violence. Fede, if you think I’m coming over there to translate your stupidaggini, well, think again.

  Fede finally gives up and jogs over to me, his hand shading the left side of his face. He’s wearing his Terminator sunglasses and those painted-on black trunks with the silver scorpion printed over the crotch. He reaches up to the wooden railing of the boardwalk and gives me the same upside-down handshake the B-boys give each other.

  “Why the poser handshake, Fede? And why are you shading your face?”

  “Ugh. Medusa’s here.” Medusa is what he calls the Milanese woman who has rented an umbrella at Bagni Liguria for the last forty summers and who insists on going topless as if this is France or something. I look over his shoulder.

  “At your own risk, Etto,” he warns. “At your own risk.”

  “Whatever, Fede. I feel so sorry for you, having to look at women’s bocce all day. Maybe you can apply for a disability stipend.”

  “Listen, I would much rather be staring at raw meat and gristle all day than at that lady’s seventy-year-old cold cuts.” He laughs, grabs the railing of the boardwalk, and leans back, stretching. “Why don’t you come off that boardwalk and talk to these Australian girls I found?”

  “No thanks. I think I’ll just laugh at you from here. What are they, nannies?”

  “One’s got a German uncle. They’re preparing the vacation homes for him and his friends. You coming over to Camilla’s later?”

  “Who’s going?”

  “Who always goes? Everybody.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Come on. I’ll buy you a beer.”

  “You always say that.”

  Mimmo reappears and hands me the money for the sandwiches. “Etto, you should go put on your trunks and come out here. We’ve got extra umbrellas until the end of the week.”

  “Thanks, but I have to make some deliveries.”

  “When you’re finished.”

  “Then I have to mow the field.”

  “Ah . . . sì, sì . . . I heard it looks completely abandoned.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “I’ve got to go, Etto,” Fede says. He points at me as if that will pin me down. “Tonight. Camilla’s.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Listen, I’m tired of these halfhearted ‘maybes.’ You’re coming. End of the story.”

  “Maybe.”

  He gives me one last glare through his sunglasses. “See you there, Etto. No excuses.”

  I walk up the hill to Pia’s, the bag of meat banging against my leg. There are only a few people out walking the terraces during the afternoon break—German hikers mostly, with their ski poles and their vigor and their heavy “Buongiornos” that land on you like a wool blanket. The sun is compact and hard, pounding away at my head like a blacksmith’s hammer. I can’t tell you how much I hate the sun. My eyes hate the sun. My skin hates the sun. My brain hates the sun. By the time I get to Via Partigiani, my shirt is soaked and my breath is chugging in and out of my lungs.

  “Ciao, Etto.”

  I jump.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “You didn’t scare me, signora.” It’s Signora Sapia, sitting on the rock under the traffic mirror with her sunglasses and her cane. “How did you know it was me, though?”

  “At this time of day, it’s either German hikers or you doing your deliveries.” She laughs. “Then I heard the wheezing and I knew it was you.”

  “I wasn’t wheezing.”

  She laughs again. “When you’re our age, Etto, you’ll be used to this old hill . . . watch out!” She points with the red tip of her cane, and I step aside just in time. The Mangona brothers come by on their racing bikes, with their stealth aerodynamics and the orange flame helmets they special ordered from the Netherlands.

  “Come on, Etto, train with us, you lukewarm piece of shit,” one of the Mangona brothers shouts at me, the backdraft carrying his words. The other one throws his head back and laughs.

  “Hey, vaffanculo!” I call after them. “Your auntie!” I add.

  They disappear around the corner, and I turn back to Sign
ora Sapia. “Sorry, signora.”

  “Oh, Etto” is all she says. A few years ago, she would have given me a lecture about cursing and showing lack of respect for the family, and she would have done it swiftly and unapologetically under the statute that allows the nonne to correct the behavior of anyone they are old enough to remember as a child. But nobody ever says a harsh word to me anymore, as if they think I’ve already done penance enough for a lifetime. Sometimes I wish they’d tell me off like they used to. Just once I’d like to hear it.

  I keep walking, crossing over to the top half of the hill. On the bottom half are the nicer villas, the ones with iron fences dropped in plumb lines straight from the sky and brick paths swept as clean as the floor in the shop. These are the people who spend most afternoons and weekends cleaning their land, spitting on and smoothing nature’s cowlicks, and waxing the new growth as aggressively as the Eastern European women who work in all the salons in town. It’s not until you get above Via Partigiani that the villas start to get more dilapidated, the people more insane. The walls crumble, the cisterns bubble out of nowhere, and the generators growl. These are the people who train their guard dogs to kill, who loudly refuse the services of the comune, who stockpile gold and root vegetables in their cellars, and talk about the cataclysm as if they can’t wait.

  Pia used to live with her parents on the bottom half of the hill until she married Nello and moved above Via Partigiani. Through the rickety gate, I can see her sitting on the edge of the garden hammock with her sunglasses on. She’s trying to pretend she spends the entire afternoon break on this hammock, but I know she only comes outside so she won’t have to answer the door in her sunglasses. Someday I’ll tell her she’s not fooling anyone, that the purple bruise is pooling past the edge of the frames.

  “Ciao, Etto.”

  “Ciao, signora.”

  “What’s this ‘signora’?” she says. “Call me Pia.”

  Pia has brought her purse out to the garden, too. She counts out the money and gives me a little tip as if I’m ten.

  “It isn’t necessary, Pia.”

  “Take it. Please, Etto, for your trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble at all.” I hand it back to her. “And you know Papà would kill me if I took a tip.”